A Shadow's Whispering
by void star blade
Summary: A Series of oneshots on life, death, and the persistance of both. Some are mysterious, some sorrowful, but all touch on the hereafter and its effects on the living.
1. Children of the sands

Karura knew she had to hurry, she could feel that her time was near. 'I have to get out of here!' she thought as she raced for the gates 'I can't let them have my baby!' she only made it as far as the edge of Suna before she collapsed in pain. 'Oh gods not here, not now.' her child was coming early, too early.

"Karura-sama!" a sand jonin who had been sent to find her shouted.

"Ito! Get the medic nin!" he called to his partner.

"hold on Karura-sama! the medic nin will be here soon." he said with a hint of desperation in his voice as he dropped to the sands beside her and began to try to help her. 'i hope...'

Karura could only nod before another contraction hit. As she came closer and closer to having her third child she could only think 'I hate Suna! I hate him for doing this to my son! Please let my son live! Please god! Please let him avenge me!' She began shouting these words aloud, shocking the nin beside her and the newly arrived medic nin. Even as the medic nin tried to heal her she gave birth to her third child and second son.

"Let me... hold... him." she managed to get through her gasps, even as the medic nin tried franticly to stem the blood flowing freely onto the sands.

"She's bleeding out" one nin called, even as the nin that had been beside he the whole time placed the as yet unnamed baby in his mothers arms as tears silently slid down his face.

"Gaara... my son," tears started to slid down her face as the world began to turn black.

"I love you, Gaara. damn Suna for doing this to you... damn the Kazekage for doing this... damn Suna... damn them all...damn...them...all..." she said with her last breaths, gasping the last words.

"I'm sorry Yashamaru, we arrived too late to do anything." One medic nin said as he took the quiet child from his dead mothers arms and handed it to Yashamaru, Karura's older brother.

No response was forth coming as the young man stared at the full moon that now rose above the sad tableau. As he he began to sob, blood soaked sand began to swirl around the group as the child, christened Gaara with his mothers last breath, began to wail with him.

Mean while, on another world...

"Lilly why are you and little harry covered in sand?" voiced James potter, proud husband and father the the aforementioned people.

"We were out playing in the sandbox, and the sand hadn't completely dried from the rain earlier today." Lilly stated even as she settled harry on her hip and brought him up to his room to change him. As she got there she looked down at her self and harry

"James was right, we are covered in the stuff." she banished the sand into a corner for harry to play with later. 'no sense in going out side to play in the sand if you can play inside where its safe,' lily though as she changed harry into a clean set of clothing, absently taking note of how much sand came off the two of them. 'quite a pile,' her only thought before heading down to diner.

Later that evening, as James and Lily snuggled in front of a fire, harry in his crib, they felt the ward fall and heard the front door shattered open.

only one person would blast open the door.

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!" James shouted as Lilly stumbled twords Harry's room.

"Avada Kedavra!" she heard from the sitting room and knew James had fallen. She was sobbing as she got to Harry's room to find that he had gotten out of his crib and was playing in the sand she had banished to the corner earlier that day.

'Oh god! Please god!' she thought franticly as she rushed over to harry after shutting and placing the strongest locking charm she knew on the door.

"Harry come here." she said as she scooped up her son. Behind her the door to the nursery was blasted open. Lily whirled around, dropping harry back on the sand in order to protect him.

"_YOU!"_ she shouted filled with rage at the site of the man that had killed so many. "You god damned bastard son of a feral magic-less bitch!" lily cussed at Voldemort.

Slightly pissed that a lowly muggle born would call him such a thing, Voldemort decided to send a cutting hex at her unprotected neck. Lily stumbled back tripping over her own feet and turning to land above her only son. 'i love you' she mouthed as blood gushed onto harry and the sand underneath him, soaking them both with blood. She gathered harry into her arms in order to hold him one last time.

As the world turned black, lily's last thought was 'please let my son live! please god! please let him avenge me!' before the last of her life blood that flowed streamed onto the sand and her child. Laughing cruelly , Voldemort banished Lily's corpse away from Harry, leaving him unprotected, or so he thought. He took aim and said the words that had never before failed him.

"Avada Kedavra!" the spell bounced off Harry, leaving only a cut on his head in the shape of a lightning bolt, and lashed out at the supremely shocked soon to be ex-dark lord, destroying his body completely. the blood soaked sand swirled and formed into a ball around harry as the house exploded.

A few minutes later the sound of a motor bike filled the air. "James! Lily!" Sirius had arrived on the scene. Finding the house in ruins he shouted there names again and again as frantically searched the smoking ruble, then the dim sound of a baby's cry meet his ears "HARRY!" he called desperately as he traced the cry to its source. Absently breaking the glass that had formed around the sand that had shielded Harry from the blast Sirius scooped up Harry and held him tightly.

"Pa'foo'!" Harry cried happy to see his favorite playmate. "Harry.." Sirius sobbed, mourning the loss of his first friend. His thoughts began to take a nosedive as he went into hysterics. ' James, sob lily, i have failed you... I'm sorry..' "I'm sorry!" he sobbed out loud 'If only I hadn't convinced them to switch! If only peter..' hear he stopped as several details pounded their way though his grief, and suddenly it clicked "_Peter_!" the word was a snarl, promising pain and death. As Sirius fell into thought of how to end his now ex-friends life, Hagrid arrived.

"good god!" he said, horrified, as he surveyed the ruins, "how could this have happened?" he wondered aloud, then, spotting someone he could not identify through the smoke kneeling in the ruble, he shouted "OY! WHO'R YOU!" Sirius's gaze snapped tword him.

"Hagrid, it me, Sirius." he stated in a broken tone completely devoid of life. "Sirius? are you alright?"

"Hagrid..." Sirius stumbled over to him intent on telling him everything, but all he could do was fall to the ground in front of him and sob. " oh Sirius.." Hagrid said sadly as he sat down next to the distraught man. "it'll be alright. hes dead now and the worlds a better place for it. shhh, shhh calm down now..." Hagrid continued to try to calm him. Sirius didn't know how long he had been caught in his grief when he registered what Hagrid was saying '...take him to Dumbledore so-"

"Dumbledore," Sirius interrupted, "yes.." 'I can't take harry with me to hunt down that traitor' "Yes... Dumbledore will keep him safe.." his thoughts once again turning to revenge, he said "Hagrid take my bike," , he said pressing the keys into Hagrid hands" i wont be needing it for a while."

After all, it was easer to track in his dog form.

* * *

This story was formerly its own story but i felt that it should be moved here becouse i have vearry little motivation to up date it.


	2. An encounter

An Encounter

* * *

"What are you doing here?" he asked the silent figure by the moonlit shore. The girl, no, young woman, gave no response or sign that she had even heard him. After several minutes he asked again, "What are you doing here?" and once again, no response. After several more minutes he asked a different question. "What are you waiting for?" This did get a response. The woman turned and he was shocked to see that her front was bloody and her throat slit. Then she spoke, in an almost silent voice, "I'm waiting for someone to find me." With those words she vanished as though she had never been.

* * *

When he told what he had seen to a local, the local replied, "Oh-ho! You've met our resident ghost, have you?! You're the first one she has talked to, but then again you are the first one that's talked to her. Most folks take one look at her bloody, ghostly form and split. But you say she looked solid? First time that's happened." He was shocked. He had seen a ghost? Had he? He had only gotten to town yesterday for a vacation and had gone down to the ocean to… to… why had he gone down to the shore? He couldn't remember.

* * *

That night he went down to the ocean's shore again, and again the woman was there. This time he did not say a word just walked up to her and sat down next to her. He tried to figure out what he wanted to do, why he had returned, why he hadn't stayed in his hotel, why he had decide to sit next to her. As he turned to look at her he noticed again the bloody front and slit throat, but then he noticed her other features. Brown hair and plain features, her most striking feature was her eyes, her infinitely sorrowful eyes, eyes that mirrored the ocean into which she was staring. "Who are you?" he asked after spending long moments staring at her gruesomely haunting visage. "Sionainn." She replied in her ghostly voice, and as with the last time, she vanished as though she had never been.

* * *

And so it went, night after night he would go down to shore and sit next to the ghost, some nights questioning her, some nights just spent talking of what came to mind, some in total silence. Thus he spent most of the first month of his 2 month long vacation. Then one night, something out of the ordinary happened. The ghost spoke to him without prompt.

* * *

"Why do you keep coming?" she asked one moonless night. She seemed honestly confused. He was silent for a time and then he responded, "I keep coming back because I feel I need to. I cannot leave you alone here without trying in some way to help you. This is one thing I feel I can do. I will never be anything but an avrage chunnin. I could not help my parents, I could not help my team mates, I could not help my best friend in their time of need. But you, for some reason, I feel, no, I know I can help you. I'm just trying to figure out how." The silence seemed to strech out to become eternity. Then he asked "Where can I find you?" she was silent for so long he began to believe that she would not answer. Then, "follow." That was all she said, and follow he did.

* * *

'Me and my damn conscience.' Was his only thought as he swam after the floating form of the ghost Sionainn. But whenever she looked back and he saw her eyes, he couldn't regret his actions. So here he was swimming towards an island that was barley visible from shore, following a ghost to her body, in hopes of giving her soul rest. As they neared the shore he began to feel that the island had an aura of dread that began to weigh him down. Suddenly she stopped. She looked back to where he was treading water. "Down" she said, and dove down into the water. He followed.

* * *

When he came up he was in an under ground cave. It was completely dark all he could see was the form of the ghost he had been following. The floor felt sandy beneath his bare feet. She looked at him and, without a word, began to move further into the cave. He had no choice but to follow.

* * *

He had lost track of how far he had walked. The floor beneath his feet had long turned to stone and there had been so many twists and turns that he was certain that he would never be able to find his way out on his own. At last the ghost stopped. And as he looked around he saw a skeleton, glowing with the same strange light that was emitting from the ghost. At the skeletons waist was a sword in its scabbard and as he looked closer he saw that around her neck was a gem that glowed in the spectral light. And on her head, there was a forehead protector with the sigil of "The village hidden in the mists?" Suddenly, the cave was flooded with light. "I don't know how you found this cave civi, but your not getting out of it alive." It was the local he had spoken to that day long ago, but around his head wave a slashed mist headband. He was a missing nin, and believed that he was a civilian. He could use that to his advantage. "Why did you kill her!?" he asked. The missing nin replied "I did the world a favor when I slit that demons throat! She would have destroyed us all, once she had regained her true form! We never would have stood a chance against the fully resurrected 8 tail but trapped in a human body, she was weak. And I killed her! She never saw it coming." The missing nin laughed insanely and charged him. He quickly dodged, but was caught across the face by the missing nin's follow up. "Use my sword!" the ghost shouted. He looked to where her voice had come from and seeing her sword lying next to him, he picked it up and, in one move, unsheathed it and slammed it into the missing nins body. "She wasn't a demon!" he shouted at the missing nins dieing body, "she was a lonely girl that was a vessel and had no choice in being one! She had no _Choice_!"

* * *

After he had cut up the missing nins shirt to make a bandage for his face, he turned to the body of what he knew now was a vessel of a powerful demon. As he watched her ghost appeared again and said simply, "Thank you." Her eyes were teared but he could see the shear joy in being acknowledged as human by another human, even if it was after death. "Take my sword and my pendant. I have no more use for them." He simply nodded. With that she vanished. After retrieving the scabbard and pendant he turned to leave, when he was assaulted by a powerful aura. He turned and to his shock, he saw the ghostly outline of a giant, _8 tailed_, dragon. He did not draw the sword, he did not move he simply stared at the majestic form before him. "My vessel is now at peace. I give you my gratitude and my gift." With that the form charged him and seemed to go strait through him. He blacked out.

* * *

When he woke up, it was daylight, and he was on the same shore he had walked down to every night for the past month. For a moment he wondered if he had dreamed the encounter, but as he reached up to feel his face where the nin had caught him he felt a scar running strait across he nose from just under one eye to the other side of his face. And looking at the sand beside him he saw the sword and pendant the ghost of Sionainn had given him. He suddenly knew that the sword was named 'sea coral sword' and the pendant 'sea's sorrow'. And he knew that the dragon of 8 tails had taken him as a host, no, not a host. As his mortal avatar. He knew that he was the first human in many years to receive such honor, that long ago the races of demon and human had co-existed peacefully. He knew that his life would never be the same.

* * *

As he walked back to his home a month early, he wondered how the Kyuubi child- Naruto, was his name? was doing. He could no longer grudge the child for the actions of the Kyuubi. The child was a vessel just as the ghost he had aided had been. The child had had no say in becoming a vessel, all he had been able to do was sob as the most powerful demon to walk the elemental countries, (_the most powerful_, spoke his patron, _but not the oldest, or the wisest. I have bested him twice_.) was sealed into him. He wondered if the child had a guardian yet. Umino Iruka decided to find out.

* * *

This story walked into my head as a scene and the words that open this piece. Every paragraph is a new scean, and every scean leads into the next. the main charecter is left obscure untill the end simpley because he did not chose to identify him self untill then.


End file.
